Theresa
by Booklovr
Summary: Who was the woman on the ferry? When John Doe finds that she is reported missing, he thinks the mystery is almost over, when, in fact, it has only just begun...
1. Missing Since?

Theresa

Chapter 1: Missing Since…?

A John Doe Fanfiction By Booklovr 

_Disclaimer: The television show, _John Doe_, and all of the associated characters, ideas, and concepts are owned by Fox network, with which I am not affiliated, because if I was, there would be no doubt about it returning next season!_

_This story is dedicated to:_

_John Doe, our favorite amnesiac,_

_All the folks at Fox who make it happen,_

_And everyone on the JD discussion boards, who help me come up with ideas, if only by my disagreeing with theirs!_

Sometimes, I forget.

I wake up, and for a few moments everything seems normal.  I forget about the amnesia, about knowing everything, about mysteries and deaths and everything else that usually fills my waking hours.

Sometimes, sometimes, when my mind isn't yet fully awake, and I haven't yet begun to think, a minute might pass where I'm just a normal man, getting out of bed, like every other man in the world.

For that one minute, while I forget it all, the only thing I know is that I feel truly happy.

When I finally do remember, when the first thought of the day crosses through my mind, and everything comes crashing back into place, it's as horrifying as if I'm just realizing everything for the first time.

And the minute that follows is one of the most terrible things I've ever experienced, as I struggle to grasp the reality, and to find the strength that usually gets me through each day.  Because I forget that, too, and strength is the hardest thing to find.

For that one minute, while I remember it all, I'm tempted to just give up on…everything.

But I pull myself together, forcing down the despair, sometimes physically dragging myself out of bed, sometimes just lying there until I can come to terms with everything all over again.

But it's worth it.  For that one, first minute, it's worth it. 

On the morning that this story starts, Saturday, April 12, 2003, well, that was a particularly bad morning.  The first thing I remembered was that Karen is dead.  Even though it had been two months since she died…even today, looking back…it's still far too painful to deal with first thing in the morning.

Eventually, I got up, more or less ready to face the day.  I got dressed—I bet you don't know that in India it's perfectly proper for men to wear pajamas in public. Pajamas are accepted as standard daytime wearing apparel.[i]  I also bet you don't care.  But where's the fun in knowing everything if you can't show off once in a while?  Well, I suppose there's no fun anyway.

I wished I could remember what I'd dreamt the night before.  I was certain that it was the same dream every time.  I'd often tried remembering it in that first minute of the morning, but it always faded.  I wondered if it was a memory.  From before…well, Before.  The only thing I knew for certain was what it _wasn't_ about.  It wasn't about my life now: no crimes, no Phoenix Group, no worry or frustration… Laughter.  I could remember laughter.

I checked the computers in my back room.  The continuous searches that I ran, looking for anything on the Phoenix Group, the mark, or even a missing persons report that matched me—they never seemed to come up with a match for anything.  It was getting rather depressing.  Besides that, I could no longer stand the concrete walls.  I used to have pictures, maps, clues, lists, papers from cases I worked on, everything that I used to find out who I was, all over the walls.  But when everything was stolen, well, money can replace computers, but it can't replace something like that.

It was one of those mornings where I was tempted to lock the door, throw away the key, and say, "To Hell with it all!"  Not that I would be giving up.  It would just add a little variety to my day.

I wonder if I might actually have done it.  If I could have walked away from it all, never looked back.  Just continued with the life I'd been leading, and once and for all, lay the past to rest.

I'll never know.

Because just as I stood to leave, a match was found.

At first, I almost didn't look.  After all, any search engine worth the Internet connection it takes to use it will produce an average of two million, one hundred nineteen thousand, one hundred sixty-two point twenty-five results for a search on the word "phoenix," though the figure is slightly skewed because some search engines will produce as much as four thousand times as many results as others, but the point is, I had a lot of false alarms on that search.[ii]

What stopped me was when I realized that the monitor that had found the match was _not_ the one connected to the "phoenix" search.  It was the missing persons search.

Nearly two thousand, four hundred people are reported missing every day,[iii] but generally not people who have been missing for several months already.  So, naturally, I was somewhat wary of the idea that any new results would be found.  If someone matching my description was posted after all this time, well, considering how things had been going lately, my suspicions were probably justified.

But, of course, my curiosity won over my suspicion, and I looked.  This is what I saw:

_April 6, 2002  
Southburg, Washington_

****

_Theresa Small_

****

**_DESCRIPTION:_**

**_Date of Birth: _**_7/18/1975_

**_Sex:_**_ Female_

**_Height: _**_5'5"_

**_Weight: _**_125lbs_

**_Hair:_**_ Dark brown_

**_Eyes: _**_Brown_

**_Race:_**_ White_

**_The Details:_**

_One year ago, Theresa Small suddenly decided to leave her town, informing only her elderly neighbor (Mrs. Veronica Kelly) of her intentions to leave.  Small gave no details regarding her destination, stating only that it was a "family emergency" and that she would return within four months.  She has not been seen since._

_Her car, a red 1992 Isuzu Trooper license plate 101-JDF, was found abandoned in the woods beside the road, a quarter of a mile from the Southburg bus station, April 8, 2003.  Her purse, identification, and luggage were not found in the car, and there were no signs of violence._

_Small has no family, was unemployed at the time of her disappearance, and was said to "keep mostly to herself."  It is believed that she may have been going to see her long time boyfriend, whom none of her neighbors had met or could name._

_Small was last seen shortly after noon on April 5, 2002.  She was wearing dark jeans, a light blue sweater, and white sneakers._

_Anyone who has seen or has information pertaining to the whereabouts of Theresa Small, please contact your nearest police office_.

The woman in the picture—I had seen her before.  She was the woman from the ferry, the one who had seemed to recognize me.  The woman with some connection to the Phoenix Group.

She had been missing for a year.  Since _before_ I saw her.  What did that _mean_?

I needed more information, and I knew where to get it.  As soon as I had printed out a copy of the report, I headed to the Seattle Police Station as fast as I could.

Ironic.  For all my suspicions before, it never occurred to me that the search criteria had been set for myself.

Frank Hayes, Seattle cop and longtime friend, looked slightly confused to see me walk into the Police Station that day.

"John. Um.  Did we call for you?"

"Actually, no.  I…need _your_ help this time."

Considering the kinds of problems I have, Frank probably had good reason to look so unsure.  "What _kind_ of help?"

"Do you recognize her?" I asked, holding out the report.

"Southburg?  That's out of our jurisdiction.  You'd have to go to—"

"No, not the case," I cut in impatiently.  "The woman.  Does she look familiar to you?"

He hesitated.  "A little, yeah.  Why?"

"Remember, two months ago, when Karen…disappeared?  The picture in the fire?"

It seemed to click.  "The woman you see in color?"

"That's her.  She's been missing for a year, and I saw her _after_ the day she disappeared."

"Wow.  But…what do you need my help for?"

"I need to find her."

"Understandable.  But I can't help you there."

"I need to see the case file."

"I told you, that's out of our jurisdiction.  You'd have to go to Southburg and find out who's in charge of it there.  And even then, they wouldn't let just anyone—oh, no."

"I just need you to refer me as a consultant—"

"I can't _do_ that, John.  Besides, we're not allowed to just interfere with someone else's case like that.  And what exactly _are_ your qualifications?  'Knows everything' isn't going to cut it with them."

"But you could—"

"No, I can't.  Besides, you're personally involved with this.  I can't send you down there just for that!"

"Isn't there _anything_ you can do?"  I must have looked really pathetic, because he sighed and leaned forward.

"Listen, and I should _not_ be suggesting this," he whispered.  "Southburg is a pretty small town, and this disappearance has to be the biggest thing to happen there in years.  If you go down there, you can probably find her house yourself…and conduct your own investigation.  Talk to witnesses.  See what you can find out.  You might have more luck if you pretend to be a private investigator.  But if you get in any trouble, or interfere with the police there, I _will_ deny having told you this."

That was a brilliant idea.  I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before—probably the stress.  I stood up, thanking him.

"And another thing—try not to do that…thing you do."

"What thing?"

"You know.  That 'I know everything' thing.  Try and blend in."

"Blend in.  Right.  Sure.  I can blend in."

"Uh-huh.  Good luck."  I was already halfway out the door.

Just as I was leaving, I heard Jamie Avery ask Frank, "Was that Doe?  What was that all about?"

"Well," Frank answered, "you probably don't want to know."

The town of Southburg, Washington[iv] is fifty-two point three miles south of Seattle, but to travel straight takes you through National Parks, so I had to take a different route.  South along route five, east on route twelve, Southburg sat between Mt. Rainer National Park and Mt. St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument.  Within a five-mile radius of the center of the town, the land holds at a consistent elevation of seven thousand, two hundred eighty-three feet, varying within a range of plus or minus forty-seven feet.  The population at the time of the most recent census was one hundred eighteen.  The forest, which was cleared away within the town's center, still held strong until a quarter to a half of a mile past the borders.  Just to give you an idea what the place was like.

Because the bus stop was as good a place as any to start, and because my own car was not optimally equipped for mountain travel, public transportation was the way I took.  Only one bus goes to Southburg from Seattle each week, seven o'clock on Monday morning.  So I had most of Saturday and all of Sunday to prepare and wait.

A good deal of Monday, as well, it turned out.  The bus trip took six hours, twenty-three minutes.  There was traffic, and delays…but let's just skip to my arrival.

The bus station was within two hundred yards of the western-most edge of town, and consisted of nothing more than a clearing and a parking lot with no cars in it.  Southburg was not exactly a tourism hot spot.  From there, it was barely three hundred yards to where the abandoned car had been found.  It was easy to spot: the Southburg Police Department had left a deputy, a car, and probably half its supply of police tape to guard it.

Now was the time for me to try out my story.

"Excuse me, sir," I called as I walked towards the deputy.  "Is this the 1992 Isuzu Trooper abandoned by Theresa Small, missing since April 8, 2002?"

"Um."  The deputy was no more than twenty years old, and probably didn't know what to make of the situation.  "It _is_ the car that crazy woman ditched on her way out a year ago."  Then he seemed to remember himself.  "Ah, and who are _you_, sir?"

"John Doe, Private Investigator," I said, holding out a business card.  It was very impressive, I'm sure, being on laid paper with my name and "office" (actually home) address and phone number in blue and a red phoenix graphic.  The phoenix was probably a bit in poor taste, considering what little I knew about the Phoenix Group, but it was the only thing I could think of at the time.  In any case, it worked; the deputy seemed to equate my having a business card with my being a real PI, and let me approach the car.  I actually felt bad; the cards had cost me only $56.43 at Staples for a box of a thousand, and didn't really mean anything.

Let me skip the specific details about the SUV, and move to what I found: nothing.  I started with a half hearted attempt to find any signs on the ground from when she left, but footprints don't survive a year of exposure in the Cascade Mountains, so that was rather pointless.  In fact, I assumed that the local police would have found anything so obvious already, and it was mostly just a courtesy.  Inside the car, again, nothing was left.  So everything had already been taken, either by Theresa or by the police.  Well, that sort of thing had never stopped me before, and pulling on a pair of gloves, I proceeded to inspect every inch of the vehicle.

As I studied the scratches on the hood, I asked, "So, what do you think happened here?"

"Well, she was probably abducted.  The kidnapper either surprised her at the bus station or was hiding in the car when she got in.  Kidnapper hid the car down here, where no one would find it—the hill's just steep enough that you can't see this part of the woods from the road unless you're looking for it."

"Why'd the kidnapper take all of her luggage, if no one was supposed to find the car?" There was some mud splattering on the front bumper, but too much dirt had accumulated for me to tell much.

"We're still working out the details."

"And didn't the report say that there were _no_ signs of violence?" No fingerprints on the inside of the driver's side window.

No answer from the deputy.

"May I ask why this car is still out here, if it's already been searched?"  Next, I began carefully scrutinizing the driver's side.

"Well, lots of reasons," the deputy said.  "I mean, where else would we put it?  It's out of the way here, and the next time someone's heading out that way that can tow it, we'll get them to take it, too."

"Uh, huh," I barely answered, studying the seat position.  It was still set comfortably for someone of her height and stature.

"And, of course, it's not like anyone would _want_ to steal this thing—even _I_ have a better car!"

"Mmm-hmmm." The inside of the door showed no signs that the seatbelt had been undone violently, but that was never too sure of a thing, anyway.

"And we've already searched this thing all over, so there's probably nothing you can find that's useful."

"Really?" I looked at the headrest of the driver's seat.  "So you've already removed anything that could be evidence?"

"Yup, nothing in there that can be used for anything."

There was a glimmer of color on the seat: two turquoise fibers and a strand of brown hair.  "So then, you won't mind if I take this?"

"Take what?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, nothing, as you said; clearly not evidence if you missed it."  While the deputy was obviously trying to work out what I might have found, I picked up the threads and hair, and put them into a plastic bag.  Probably not evidence at all, but I wanted them, anyway.

A thorough search of the SUV produced nothing more.  Well, a few paper scraps, some lint, another thread here and there.  I picked them all up.  I guess some part of me just desperately wanted to have a part of her.  The deputy seemed to think I was only doing it to make him feel inadequate; after a few minutes, he stormed off to the police car.

The last things I looked at were the tires.  They were still new, or had been a year before.  They were flat now, because of air pressure changes, but whole, mostly still balanced, and the tread was still only slightly worn.  I inspected the clearing all around, then looked up the hill directly behind the car.  The ground was steep there.  A rotten log lay in the way.  I was just looking over that log when I heard someone approach.

"May I _help_ you?"

I turned around to face the Southburg Police Chief.  He was quite the opposite of the deputy—past middle age, but still as tough as ever, with a look that suggested whatever your story was, he'd already heard it twice before.

"Yes," I answered, "I was about to ask, how do you think this car got down this hill?"

"Who are you?"

"John Doe, I'm a private investigator from Seattle."  I handed him another business card.

Far from impressed, he didn't even glance at it.  "A private investigator?  Who hired you?"

I had this part of the story all planned out.  I looked him in the eye and said, "A private party who wishes to remain anonymous."

What?  I'm a bad liar.  The closer to the truth, the better.

"Well, _John Doe_," he spat, "I presume the car came down in the normal fashion."

"But where?" I pressed, turning back to the log.  "Not straight down this way.  This log hasn't been moved in years, as you can easily tell from the rate of decay.  And not that way, either."  I pointed to a more or less clear path up to the road, at an angle.  "Too many large rocks and a tree stump—1992 Isuzu Troopers are one of the most unbalanced Sports Utility Vehicles, so it couldn't have come that way and stayed intact.  And the only other way even remotely clear enough," I ran over to a path that ran nearly parallel to the road, "is all the way over here.  And see this broken branch?"  I moved it experimentally, testing what my mental calculations had said.  "The car hit it head on as it came this way, and it left that long thin scratch down the front—here."  I ran over and pointed to demonstrate.  "So what must have happened—she turned off the road someplace much closer to town, drove through the woods to get here, then _turned_ her car around, probably so she could get her luggage out of the back, and from there—"

"Does your story have a _point_?"  Again, far from impressed, the Chief looked simply furious.

"Just trying to reconstruct what happened."  I vaguely wondered if I had been doing "that thing I do," as Frank put it.  I tried to make it sound like I had a pretty good idea about everything, rather than actually _knowing_ everything.  In retrospect, it was probably not much of an improvement.

"Now, listen here, _Doe_, I got a call from Deputy Morse here, saying some Seattle P.I. had come out of no where and was searching the car and taking evidence—"

"_Not_ evidence," I corrected.  I held out the plastic bag.  "See?  Just some left over things inside.  If they aren't evidence, there should be no objection to my taking them."

"That should all be down at the station, with everything else gathered from the car."

"What?  A strand of hair, three paper shreds, two scarf fibers—"

"_Scarf_ fibers?  What makes you think they're scarf fibers?"

I bit my tongue.  "Just…a hunch."

"Listen, _Doe_, this is a serious investigation.  If you know something, spill it.  Otherwise, I suggest you get back to Seattle."

"I _don't_ know anything.  Well, not about this, anyway.  And I can't go back, since the bus back to Seattle doesn't come until Friday.  So you're stuck with me for a week."  Trying to be fair, I added, "I'm not planning on interfering with your investigation in any way.  I'll just ask some questions, then leave when the time comes."  I picked up the suitcase I had brought with me and turned down the path.  "Good day, Officer Russell," I added as I walked away.

"I never told you my name."

That stopped me.  Another slip.  But I said, as calmly as possible, "Well, I wouldn't come all the way up here without doing a little research, would I?"

I headed through the forest, following the path Theresa must have driven down.  By the time the path met with the road again—just outside of the center of town, on such a gradual slope, it could hardly be measured—I had concluded there was only one explanation that made sense.  Theresa had, for whatever reason, simply decided to drive along a path in the forest that was barely wide enough for her SUV, but, almost suspiciously, perfectly straight.  A few broken or overlong branches, and their corresponding scratches on her car's hood, indicated that she was driving perfectly straight; the lack of damage to the undergrowth around the clearing implied that no one had gone away from the car who wasn't under their own power and aware of how to walk relatively carefully.  Not that much evidence remained, after a year, but it there were a variety of bushes, mostly of the genus _Rubus_, meaning brambles, grew thickly near where the car was parked, and there had been no evidence of breakage, or any remains of fabric.  Again, it might not have lasted for a year…

I had to stop thinking of the scene as if it was still fresh.  Still, the most likely route of escape from a car parked in that clearing was straight up onto the road, and it was too inconvenient for anyone to come back for luggage if she didn't need to.  No matter what way I looked at it, I could see no evidence that Theresa _didn't_ leave under her own power.  But no evidence is not evidence.

She hadn't looked like she was in danger, when I saw her on the ferry, but that was six months after her disappearance, and a lot could happen in six months.

Just look at all that had happened to _me_ in the six months since I saw her.

I considered the Police Chief.  Fredrick Russell had been a very prominent lieutenant in the Boise Police Department, involved in many high-profile cases, until four years earlier, when he had gone into a semi-retirement and transferred to Southburg.  I assumed that I recognized his face from the countless newspapers that were stored in my brain, and thought no more of that, except to remind myself not to slip up like that again.  What did catch my attention was the fact that he did not seem to have previously realized any of what I had told him, and didn't seem to be paying attention when I did.  It was almost as if he didn't _want_ to learn anything about Theresa's disappearance.  But that was simply unbelievable; he was in all probability just suspicious of new people who appeared and just spilled out facts that way.  Which was, doubtless, what Frank had been trying to warn me against.__

_It would probably be a good idea to simply avoid the police from now on_, I thought.  _So much for the idea of looking over the evidence they've already gathered._  Well, I would simply need a plan B.

Southburg had a small inn.  More accurately, one of the four restaurants in the town had a second floor, where the owners lived, and there was a spare room rented out to the occasional boarder that came through town.  Roger and Joyce Harper, a middle-aged couple who, like many of the other Southburg citizens, had lived in the town for most of their lives, owned the _Lost_ _Hiker_ _Inn_, a family business.  Roger took the money I offered, and scrutinized one of my business cards, and then Joyce led me to the spare room.  She watched suspiciously as I looked over the room.  It was small, furnished with a bed, a dresser, and a desk.  The window looked out on the center of town.  It would do for four nights.

"So," she began suddenly, "you're the mysterious private eye from Seattle?"

"Yes, John Doe," I introduced myself.

"Well, Mr. Doe, if you want my advice, I suggest you go _back_ to Seattle and tell your client to keep his nose where it belongs."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know who sent you here, but I suggest you tell him, her, or _them_ that it's none of their business what goes on here." She turned and closed the door as she left.

Xenophobia.  Not uncommon among small, isolated towns, and probably understandable, given the circumstances.  But I had a feeling that this was something more.  I just didn't know what.

My next thought was to try and find where Theresa had lived.  The room did not come with a telephone, but the newest edition of the local phone book lay on the dresser, published April 21, 2002.  Theresa Small was not listed, but she may have always been an unlisted number, anyway.  Veronica Kelly was listed as living in a duplex apartment, and a quick check of the other addresses listed showed that no one was in the other half—thus, probably Theresa's house.

25 Oak Street was a fairly new building; from what I could tell of the outside architecture, it was roughly twenty years old.  Veronica Kelly lived on the bottom floor, and the second floor windows were each covered by a large "X" of police tape.  The front door was unlocked, and there was no one in the connecting hallway.  Up the stairs, the door was similarly decorated, and locked as well.  I was about to try picking it open, when I heard the sound of a clearing throat behind me.

Startled, I turned to see a silver haired woman of about sixty, looking suspiciously at me from the foot of the stairs.  "Are you lost?" she asked.

"You must be Mrs. Kelly," I said, coming down the stairs.  "My name is John Doe, I'm a Private Investigator working on the disappearance of Miss Small.  I understand you're the one who reported her missing?"

She accepted another of the business cards that I was showing around in lieu of an actual badge and turned to look at it under one of the windows.  When she looked back, she was smiling.  "Oh, good, I'm glad to see that _someone_ is finally taking an interest in poor Theresa's disappearance!  Come, come, I'll make you some tea."

Her apartment was small but homey, and Mrs. Kelly proved eager enough to talk.

"Call me Veronica, please, almost no one uses 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' around here."  She sat across the table and poured us both tea.  "Now, I'm sure you're going to want to know all about Theresa."__

_Everything_, I thought.  "Just what relates to her disappearance," I said.

"Well, she lived upstairs from me for three years before she left.  Sweet young thing, very smart, too, but kept mostly to herself.  Anyway, about a year ago, she told me there was a family emergency, and she would need to leave for a few months, and wanted to know if I could keep an eye on her apartment.  Of course I said yes, poor thing, and she left that afternoon.  Haven't seen her since."

"Family emergency?  I thought she had no family."

"Well, I think she may have been going to see her boyfriend.  Never met him, he didn't like the mountains or something, but she talked about him quite a bit, and they were together since before she moved here.  He moved around a bit, never had the same return address twice on the letters he sent."

"But she never once mentioned his name?"

"Well…she might have once…I'm getting old, you know, memory's not so good anymore."

I considered what she'd told me.  "Well, Veronica, that's pretty much everything in the official report.  In fact, that's almost _exactly_ everything in the official report.  Don't you have anything to add?"

She seemed unfazed.  "Oh, is it?  As I said, I'm getting old.  Tend to repeat myself, you know.  Well, you ask me a question, and see what you can stir up."

"Alright.  Why did you wait a year to report her missing?"

She shrugged.  "At first, I was a little worried, but I thought whatever it was just took longer than she thought it would.  About five months ago, I started to get suspicious, but the police here wouldn't believe me.  Not many people liked her, you see, someone who stays in one place, doesn't go out much, doesn't talk to anyone, they assume she's a little crazy.  It wasn't until we got a young couple up here a last week, looking for a place to live—city folk, they saw a squirrel run across the road or something and stopped to take pictures, found her car there.  The two of them raised a huge ruckus, and finally got enough attention that the police had to report it."

"Does this couple have a name?"

"Oh, probably.  I don't know it.  They decided they didn't like country life so much after all, headed back to Olympia.  Police might know how to contact them, if they decide to tell you."

Right.  Another possible clue I wouldn't be able to get.  "So, if she never went out much, how'd she pay rent, buy food?"

"Well, she never really had a job, if that's what you're asking.  I guess her boyfriend sent her money.  She used to do odd jobs around town, to earn a little here and there.  Of course, shoveling driveways or raking leaves, she was competing against the local boys and girls, so it didn't get her too much business, you know."

I tried to think.  She lived here for three years.  Never spoke to anyone.  Never had a job.  It was rather unbelievable.  "Do you know anything about her past?"

"No, nothing, she never really talked about that kind of thing."

"So what _can_ you tell me?"

"Not much helpful, I'm afraid.  Theresa kept to herself, wrote to her 'secret' boyfriend, sometimes played the piano, that's really about it."

"She played the piano?"

"Yes.  Didn't have one of her own, but she would bring down her music and use mine."  Veronica moved into her sitting room and showed me a piano in the corner.  She played a few notes, absently; it was almost perfectly in tune, though it had turned ever so slightly flat, as if it hadn't been cared for in a while.  "I'm afraid it's fallen out of use in the past year.  She played so much better than I could, what with my arthritis now…it seemed a shame to continue without her."

"What…kinds of songs did she play?" I asked, trying to sound only idly interested.

"Oh, all kinds." A distant look crept into her eyes.  "She had a song for almost every mood.  One particular favorite, though.  How did it go?" She slowly began to play, carefully, and with more skill than she would have given herself credit for.  I recognized the song, and had to turn away to hide my expression.__

_My Funny Valentine.[v]_

"Well," I said hastily, clearing my throat.  "That's enough for today, I think.  I can, of course come back if I have more questions?"

"Oh, yes," said Veronica, returning her attention to me.  "Although there was one other thing.  Now, what was I going to…?  Ah, yes.  If I remember correctly, the last letter she got from her boyfriend was from Seattle, and I believe there was a bus the day she left that went _to_ Seattle, in fact, at five o'clock that afternoon."

"Really?"  I knew the latter fact, of course, but the former was interesting.

"Yes, that's right.  You will go see if you can find anything there, won't you?  I'm afraid I've started to get quite worried, after all this time.  I've suspected for a while she might have gone that way, but of course the police _here_ won't listen.  _They_ don't seem to care."

"Seattle.  I'll be sure to see what I can find when I go back Friday."

"You'll be here until Friday?"

"Yes, the five o'clock on Friday is still the only bus back to Seattle."

"Ah.  I thought you would have driven.  Well, no matter.  If you have any more questions, well, I'm usually right here.  Good bye."

With that, the conversation was clearly over.

I paced up and down my small room that night, trying to figure out what I'd gathered so far.

"Alright.  So she lived here alone for _three years_, but no one knows anything about her.  Except that she used to play _My Funny Valentine_.  Which is the one song that I…is it a coincidence?  Did I know her?  Do I recognize that song because I heard her play it once?

"Never mind that, focus on her disappearance.  She packed up her car and left without telling anyone where she was going.  No one even asked.  'Family emergency,' but no family.  Boyfriend _could_ count as family.  So, she drives out of town, turns off the road, and _hides her own car?_  Didn't want anyone to know she was taking the bus?  But why, driving would be faster—unless, she didn't want to be followed?  Why not?  Where was she going?"

I thought hard about that car.  Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.  "No signs of violence, but they still assume that she was kidnapped.  And the killer 'ditched the car'—wait."  Was that what I had missed?  "The deputy—he said that _she_ ditched the car there, but then said she was abducted, and the kidnapper hid the car.  That doesn't add up.   What was he trying to—"

There was a noise outside.  I opened the door.  Joyce glared at me and demanded, "Who were you talking to?"

"No one."

"I heard your voice.  Who were you talking to?"

"I was talking to myself, trying to think.  I do that sometimes."

"You sounded like you were on the phone."

I pointed to my cell phone, the only line in the room, which was charging.  "No service out here in the mountains," I added.

She glared for a second in the general direction of the window, then turned around.  "Well, keep it down; it's after ten and _some_ people are trying to sleep!"

I sighed and shut the door.  Rather typical of small town people…rather_ stereo_typical, actually.  In fact, a little _too_ stereotypical.  Nosey landlady, concerned widowed neighbor, incompetent police officers—it was like a bad detective novel.  That's what was bothering me—or at least one of the things that bothered me—everyone was acting exactly as someone might expect them to.  Almost as if they were all playing parts!

But what really got to me was the incompetent police bit.  Russell was from Boise, so he should have _known_ better than to simply assume kidnapping, especially when there was no evidence for or against it.  He should have _known_ that car couldn't have simply been driven down the hill from anywhere nearby.  So why hadn't he?  Or why hadn't he _seemed_ to?

It was a lot to think about, but unfortunately, I didn't get any farther that night.  Eventually, I gave up for the time and went to sleep, still thinking…and humming…

_A/N: Okay, I am writing this story as it comes to me—that's a first—so there's no telling how long it will take the next chapter to appear: days, weeks, more weeks…if you want to speed up the process a little, use the handy "review" button at the bottom of the page, and tell me what I'm doing right and wrong.  My Muse appreciates it.  Until next time!_

  


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[i]  _in India…daytime apparel._  Provided by Drachendamen at the official John Doe boards at 

[ii] Averages provided by my own research and are not verifiable.

[iii] Number unconfirmed.

[iv] Southburg, Washington is a completely invented town, and any resemblance to a real town is purely coincidental.  All associated figures are also invented, so if they don't "work out" please feel free to blame my parakeet.  I know I will!

[v] _My Funny Valentine_: for lyrics and information, go here: 


	2. Investigations

Theresa Chapter 2: Investigations 

_A John Doe fanfiction by Booklovr_

Disclaimer: The television show, John Doe, and all of the associated characters, ideas, and concepts are owned by Fox network, with which I am not affiliated, which will be obvious when this does NOT happen on the show in a few weeks…

This chapter dedicated to everyone who reviewed—because that's what keeps the chapters coming!

A/N: Ta-da! The long-awaited second chapter!  To be exact, this is chapter 2a.  I was going to make it a little longer, but it was taking forever to write.  So, I'll finish it up and depending on how long the rest of it is, either repost or give you a really short chapter 3.  Enjoy!

I had the dream again that night.  Only…something was different.

I didn't wake up in a great mood.  In fact, I was disoriented.  I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something I should be remembering.

And something else unusual: I woke up, humming.  _My Funny Valentine_, of course.  Why?  Was it just leftover from my wondering about it the night before?  Or…had that been in my dream, too?  Too many things to think about.

Where to start?  I considered my options: try and find someone in town willing to talk, try and look in Theresa's apartment, try and see what the local police already had, try and take another look at the car…I didn't like the fact that all my ideas started with "try."

Well, I'd had some small success the day before with the car, but something about it still bothered me.  So I headed back that way again.

Deputy Morse was still guarding the SUV, but he seemed at his limits.  I wondered how long, exactly, he'd been on this duty.  He sat in the cop car, staring straight ahead, and didn't notice when I snuck up behind.  I waited as he began to nod.  It takes the average human seven minutes to completely fall asleep, but I had to wait one hour eighteen minutes before Morse finally slumped forward across his steering wheel.  Five more minutes, just to be sure, and the SUV was all mine.

What had I missed?  Well, that was a hard question to answer; the Trooper had been gone over so well, not a thing remained inside but a layer of dust.  So, forget the inside.  There were other sides to a car.

The outside was consistently filthy: rain, snow, pollen, and the various animals that had visited it over the course of the last year had all left their signs, and there was no indication of what it might have looked like before.  The tires, as mentioned, where flat, but appeared to have previously been in good condition.  The spare tire was still in place, unused.  The car was, except for the signs of a year of abandonment, in perfect condition.  Perfect?

Any number of things can be wrong with an eleven-year-old car, from worn brake pads to severe electrical malfunctions.  I checked under the hood and below the car, and once again found: nothing.  Only this time I was beginning to notice something to the nothing. 

What was wrong with the picture was that not a single thing was wrong with it.

Rust accumulation was correct for a year of exposure, no more.  The break pads were even better than mine.  Not a single malfunction to be found anywhere.  Every connection, every piece of equipment, every detail had been, at the time, in show room condition.  The oil had been changed, the tires replaced, even the windshield wiper fluid had been refilled.

Suddenly, it occurred to me what I had noticed the day before.  How could I have been so stupid?  The entire time I was searching, I was stirring up dust!  If I was right…

I opened the back passenger side door of the car, and looked at the carpet.  Since I hadn't looked as closely here, there were still patches where the dust was undisturbed.  In fact, _only_ in areas I hadn't looked closely, the dust was undisturbed.  Looking closely, I could still trace my exact movements in the dust.

The police hadn't searched the car a week ago.  No one had been in there for a year.

A quick look under the seats confirmed my guess: the dust was exactly as thick under there as anywhere else.  The reason there had been nothing to find was that the car had been completely checked, refitted, repaired, and cleaned a year before.  The lack of evidence inside was not because of a thorough police investigation, but a thorough vacuuming.

But _why_?

There is only one car garage in Southburg, owned by Carl Finnegan.  Logically, an overhaul like what that car had received would have happened there.

Logically, at least.

"Look, buddy," Finnegan said, "I deal with a lot of cars here, I can't remember every single job off hand."

"You keep records, don't you?"

"I don't have _time_ to look something like that up.  See this car?" He gestured to a 1999 Ford Windstar with extensive damage to the front end.  "Susan Morgan almost hit a deer last night.  Wound up hitting a tree, instead.  She's got four kids, lucky thing none of them were in the car at the time, and her husband drives a truck.  Now, I promised I'd get this fixed up as soon as I can, because she just can't get around without it, and I'm not letting you take one more minute of my time." He turned back to his work on the front bumper.

"But if you remember what everyone in town drives, just like that, you ought to be able to remember this."

"I said I'm busy."

"Please, just _try_ and remember.  1992 Isuzu Trooper, large box-like car, there's only one registered in this town—"

"How'd you know that?" He demanded.

"I just—never mind, the point is, it should stick out in your memory, a car like that getting a complete check up."

Finnegan sighed.  "Alright.  I remember Theresa Small needed to get her whole car checked over a year ago.  It was in good condition to begin with; she must have kept it good.  I fixed what I could find, cleaned it up, and that was it."

"Really?  Did she say why she needed it looked at for?"

"No.  I didn't ask.  She probably knew she was leaving on a long trip, and wanted to make sure it was fit for that kind of work.  That's it.  Now, if you'll excuse me?"  Again, he turned away.

So, she had bought the car in good condition, rarely drove it, and got the finishing touches put on it, right before abandoning it on the side of the road?  Not likely.  Keeping a car in good condition was one thing; this one was immaculate.  What had it been like when she got it?  Several ways to find out…

"Three dollars?" I demanded.

"That's right.  A dollar fifty a minute, no refunds, pay in advance," Roger informed me, keeping his hand on the telephone receiver.

"But no telephone company in the nation charges anything near that rate!  And with independent services, you can make calls for even less—"

"What, dial ten-ten-three-two-one and get all calls up to twenty minutes for only ninety-nine cents?  What's next, dial one-eight-hundred-collect and save a buck or two?  You watch too much TV.  That's the rate for calling from this Inn, no exceptions.  Understand?"

Since I had been unable to find a single pay phone in all of Southburg, I had no choice but to hand over three dollars to make a two minute call.  And not even private; Roger stood there the whole time, listening.

I dialed Frank's office number and got his voice mail.  "Frank, it's me.  I need another favor—can you find anything on…" I glanced at Roger, who still made no sign of moving.  "…On that car in the report?  All the information should be there.  I need to know who it was registered to, when they bought it, anything you can find.  Don't call me, I'll call you."  I hung up.

"By the way," I added on my way out of the room, "that was twelve point three seconds, which works out to thirty point seven five cents."

"No refunds."

Not that three dollars was a huge strain on my budget, but it was somewhat annoying.

It was two thirty-seven in the afternoon.  What I really wanted was to search Theresa's apartment, which I technically should not have been doing without a warrant.  Which meant that I just couldn't be caught at it.

Easier said than done.  There was no way of entering the duplex without passing by Veronica's windows.  Well, not directly, anyway.  Staircase was to the right of the apartments, so that the only windows looking out over the street were on the left half of the building; I would need to somehow get around the building unseen and approach from the opposite direction.  Since Oak Street was a dead end, walking casually past the front of the house was not going to work.  Judging from what I had seen of the floor plan, only the bedroom and bathroom windows would look out the back, and the odds of Veronica looking out from that direction were slim, but not negligible.  So passing behind the house was the better idea, but still not the best.  The edge of the forest was approximately three hundred fifty yards behind the duplex, so by traveling fifty more yards within the woods, I could circumvent the entire neighborhood, start on the far end of the street, approach from the right, enter as quietly as possible, go up the stairs, pick the lock to Theresa's door, and take a look around.  If I left by the same route, I could go unnoticed.

If that sounds like an overly complex way to sneak past one elderly woman, I can assure you that it isn't.  In fact, it wasn't complex enough.

"Hello?  Is someone out there?" Veronica opened her door and looked into the hallway before I was even halfway to the staircase.

"John," she remarked with some surprise.  "I didn't expect to see you again.  So soon, I mean.  Come in; come in, how goes the investigation?  Any luck?"

I had no choice but to pretend I had come to talk to her.  "Veronica," I smiled as pleasantly as possible.  "No…not much luck at all.  I'm afraid no one is willing to talk to me."

"Well, that's understandable, isn't it?  Most people around here don't trust strangers much.   Been a while since we've seen a new face, you know."

"Four years ago, correct?  Isn't that when Russell came up here?  From what I can tell, everyone gets on with him just fine."

"Well, that's a little different.  He had family up here, an aunt if I remember correctly.  Can't quite recall…I was always so bad with names."

"Really?  Given the approximate birth and death rates of this region, there couldn't have been more than two hundred twelve different people in this town[i] over the course of your life.  I wouldn't think that it would be hard—" 

"Clearly you know nothing about memory troubles," she said sharply.

"Oh, I…know a thing or two.  But recent studies show that long term memory—"

"Well, for your information, I didn't come here until I married my husband George, and there was no one named Russell in town at the time.  So his aunt was either maternal or married herself, and excuse me if I'm a bit rusty on everyone's maiden names.  Besides, I haven't left this house much since George died six years ago, and I haven't been too up on gossip since.  I never heard who Fredrick's aunt was, or if I did I wasn't paying much attention.  Believe me now?"

"I'm sorry," I murmured, looking away guiltily.  _Shouldn't vent my frustrations on innocent women like that_, I scolded myself.

She sighed.  "No, I'm sorry, I'm a bit touchy these days.  I can hardly even make it down to the store to buy my own groceries anymore.  It was such a blessing having Theresa around; she used to go out for me.  It's been a hard year."

"Are you suffering from…some kind of condition?" I wondered.

"Only old age.  Don't suppose there's a cure for that?"

"But women sixty-five and under—"

Veronica chuckled.  "Sixty-five, eh?  Bit of advice, John, don't try guessing a woman's age; you men always get it wrong.  I'm seventy-three, for your information."

"Really?  You've…aged well."

"Only on the outside.  On the inside, well…" she sighed again and began to rub her hands absently.  "I do hope you find her.  It gets lonely out here.  The top apartment's never really been quality real estate, if you know what I mean.  At least from what I remember, haven't been able to climb the stairs in years.  She had to come down here to visit."

"Hmm.  Why _did_ Theresa live there, by the way?"

"Oh, the price.  One good thing about poor real estate is that it's nice and cheap, you know.  Theresa was always on a tight budget.  Take that car she drove; piece of junk.  Always told her it would get her in an accident, but she couldn't afford anything better."

"Oh, really?  But, before she left, Theresa got the whole car checked over, and I think there was…a little work done on it, too."

"Hmm.  You sure?  I wouldn't have thought she would go for something like that.  Carl's memory isn't so grand, either, maybe he remembered wrong?"

"Maybe," I said noncommittally.

"Well, if you want my advice, try getting to know the people in town, see if you can get them to trust you a little more."

"How would I do _that_?"

"Well, do you like bars?"

And that's how I found myself at Wood's Bar early that evening.  There was a small collection of the locals at one end, me at the other, and the bartender, Mark Wood, somewhere in the middle.  Social skills, still a work in progress.

Well, Mark was standing relatively close.  Or was it just so he could reach that bottle of brandy?

"You know," I ventured, "back in Seattle, I work in a bar some nights."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm good friends with the bartender there.  He and I—"

"Well, maybe you should go back there."

Yeah, it was the brandy bottle.  Well, a simple "I'm busy here" would have been sufficient.

I considered the group at the other end of the bar.  Three men, sitting near the pool table.  They were all eyeing me over their beers.  Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.  I stood to leave.

"Hey," one of the men shouted suddenly.  "We haven't seen you around before.  What are you doing here?"

I shrugged.  "Drinking."

"Aren't we all?" answered another.

The older two turned back to their drinks, but the youngest, about twenty-six, waved me over.  "These guys aren't very interesting, but you might do.  Play pool?"

"A little."

He grinned, seeming friendly enough.  "Name's Jim."

"John," I said, skipping the rest of my usual introduction.

Playing pool is always an interesting experience for me.  It actually takes more effort for me to lose than to win, and I tried to focus on not getting all the balls in right off.

"So, where you from?" asked Jim after a minute.

"Seattle," I said.  "You?"

"Here.  Where else?  I've been in this town my whole life.  Fascinating lifestyle, huh?"

"Oh, it seems…calmer out here," I offered.

"Calmer.  Yeah.  Boring's more like it."

"So why not leave?"

"Oh, I will." He grinned at me across the table, sinking the two and ten ball with one hit.  "Not bad, eh?  I'm just saving up money to get out of here.  Work at the grocery store for now.  Not much room for improvement there."

"At least you meet a lot of people that way," I commented, wondering how I could bring this conversation around to Theresa.

Turns out, I didn't even have to try.  "Yeah, but not too many my age.  Weren't that many to begin with, now they're all gone or working, you know.  There was that girl, though, for a few years."

"Girl?"

"Yeah, Theresa was her name.  Real cute one, you know.  Now there's someone who had some stories, eh?"

"You…talked a lot with her?"

"Oh, yeah.  Well, okay, so not _that_ much, but she'd come up every two or three weeks, so sometimes we'd get to talking."

"What about?"

"Well, you know, _she_ wasn't from around here at all.  Used to try and get her to talk about where she came from."

"Where was that?"

"Boise, I think.  And someplace else before that.  A bit of a traveler, she was.  Between you and me, I think that's why she left.  Got bored here.  Not that I can blame her, you know."  He grinned again.  "Pity she went without warning; I woulda gone with her, if she wanted company, you know what I mean?" He winked and lined up his shot.  "Eight ball, side pocket."

I was somewhat surprised; I hadn't lost a game of pool in a long time.  "That's…impressive."

"You wouldn't be holding back, would you?  Or are you just easily distracted by stories of pretty girls?"

"Maybe a little of both."

"Well, you try a little harder next time, and I'll see if I can remember any more stories, eh?"

"You're on."  This time, I grinned back.

In the end, I didn't learn too much more about Theresa, but I did feel a little better that night.  So much better, in fact, that I went right to sleep without really thinking that much more about the case.  And the next morning, I slept in until late in the morning.  I dreamt…something new, something different.  I was starting to dislike the whole idea of dreams.  According to Freudian dream interpretations, the most common dreams are actually based on anxieties that were not correctly dealt with during the day.  I think I have my fair share of those.

I thought about what I'd heard from Jim the night before.  Little things, which my mind clung to almost desperately.  She liked boats, and often talked about learning to sail.  She was a dog person.  They used to argue over whether she was more of a country girl or a city girl—Theresa insisted she liked fields and quiet, but Jim said he knew she got lonely without enough people around.  She had said that she'd only seen the ocean a few times in her life, and wanted to see it again.  Jim said he thought she'd gone west, or maybe north.  He also thought that she had left on her own, not been kidnapped like the police said, and she'd left her car to "make a clean start.  She came into town with nothing more than what she was carrying, and that's all she wanted to leave with.  A real wandering type, you know?  Personally, I think all this fuss about it is a little much.  She managed to make a clean break, and I don't want to see nothing bring her back, you know?"

I suspected that his opinion was somewhat colored by his own desire to leave, but perhaps he was on to something.  What if she had been trying to make a "clean break"?  I filed that away to think about later.  I still needed more.

I had resolved to spend the day talking to different people in the town, see if _anyone_ could tell me _anything_.  I guess my success with Jim gave me new confidence; somehow I thought I'd have more success.  I only needed to know where to start.

Where to start, that was a good question.  I decided right there was as good a place as any.  Beginning with the Harpers, I planned to systematically visit every house in town until I found someone who had answers.

In theory, a good plan.  In theory.

"Hello, my name is John Doe and—"

"Whatever you're selling, we already have one."

"Excuse me, my name is John, do you have a minute?"

"No, I'm not interested."

"Hi, my name's John and—"

"Here's five dollars towards whatever you're collecting for."

"I'm not asking for money!"

"What do you mean?  Everyone's asking for money."

For a while, I even tried just handing a business card right over, instead of introducing myself.  But that seemed to create an even more hostile reaction, so I switched back to failed introductions.

All day, I walked back and forth across the town, hoping for anyone who would be willing to talk.  I hardly ever managed to get a word in about Theresa, and whenever I did, the reaction was always the same.

"Theresa?  I don't know, she lived here for a few years.  Never saw much of her.  I don't know where she is now."

In fact, it was almost _exactly_ the same every time.  Apparently, no one knew anything.  Almost as if they had never noticed she was there in the first place, and never noticed when she left.  Or something.

I was ready to give up.  Two days straight, and not one thing that could be considered a clue.  I was no closer to finding out what happened to Theresa than I was to convincing the townspeople to trust me.  In fact, I was sure that I was making progress in the opposite direction.

"My name is—"

"I've heard about you.  Get lost, buddy!"

It was starting to get dark when the last door in town slammed in my face.  It would appear that somehow I had made the entire town mad at me, though I didn't have the faintest idea how.

I needed to clear my head, and that I did have an idea about.

As I previously mentioned, the town was mainly located within a clearing situated in the middle of a forest.  Calculating the approximate distance from the center of town to the circumference of the clearing, I estimated the tree line to be fifteen point seventy-one miles full circle.  I decided to walk it, and mentally catalogue all of the trees and plants easily visible from the edge.  My usual walking rate is two point seven[ii] miles an hour, though I was going slightly slower at the time, so I estimated the walk would take just over five hours and forty-five minutes.  Sunset was at eight o'clock, and the moonrise at eight fourteen, and since the exact full moon had been the night before (or, more accurately, that morning at twelve thirty-seven), I expected to have plenty of light, and to be able to finish around midnight.

I might have been able to, but I never finished.  Around eight forty-five, just as I was noting the twelfth _Fraxinus americana_, or white ash tree, I became aware that someone was watching me.  I turned to see a small girl, about nine years old, standing fifteen feet away, halfway between me and what was apparently her house.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Identifying the vegetation on the edge of this town," I explained.

"Ooooooooooooh," she commented.  Then she smiled.  "That one's an oak tree!" She said proudly.  "And that's a birch.  And over here," she ran to a tree near where I was standing, "is a white pine.  You know, they have needles in groups of five!  See?  W-H-I-T-E.  White."

"Yes, I know that."  I smiled and squatted down to her level.  "Where'd you learn it?"

"Girl scouts," she said, as if it was obvious.  "Where'd _you_ learn it?  _You_ aren't a girl scout!"

"Oh, I just…picked it up.  Maybe from another girl scout."

It seemed that this explained my possession of what she considered secret knowledge.  "Okay!  So are you lookin' at _all_ the trees in town?  There's a _lot_!"

"I might."

She considered.  "You need a better job."

"This isn't my job, I just do it for fun."

"So then what _do_ you do?"

"Well…I play the piano…and sometimes I help the police."

"Ooooooooooooh."  She thought about that.  "Soooooooooooo…are you the man from Seattle looking for Miss Theresa?"

I was surprised, but tried not to show it.  "Yes, I am."

"You will find her, right?"

"I hope so," I said.  "Did you know her?"

"Uh-huh," she said, nodding emphatically.  "We all did.  And we're all _really_ worried about her, but—" Suddenly, she stopped.  "I'm not supposed to talk to you."

"What?" And I thought I'd been surprised before.  "Why not?"

"Because—" She stopped again. "Just because.  I hafta go now."  She turned and ran back to her house.

"She's not allowed to talk to me?" I demanded out loud as I paced around the room that night.  "Why not?"  I ran through my mental catalogue of the houses.  Her door had been answered by a woman, presumably her mother.  I remembered handing her a card, and the door had been immediately slammed in my face.  Which meant…

"What the _hell_ is going on in this town?" I demanded.  "Someone disappears for a year, and no one even cares?  If everyone is worried, why don't they show it?  Why will no one _talk_ to me about it?"  More pacing.  "I knew something was wrong here, something is so _wrong_!  I have to know what, I have to know…"

I stopped, pounding my fist on the desk.  "They know something.  I know it.  They're all hiding something.  But…what?"

I thought back to the one time I'd seen Theresa, standing on the ferry, calling to me.  _I will find you.  Whatever it takes._  I just couldn't believe I'd given up looking for her so soon after that.  Well, it had seemed like the right idea at the time, but what if she was in trouble now, what if she had been in trouble _then_?  If I'd had a chance to save her, and had failed…I didn't think I could ever forgive myself.

_Relax_, I told myself.  _I will find her.  I haven't failed yet.  And I won't start now._  Then I made possibly the worst decision I could have made under the circumstances.

I decided to go to bed, and look at the problem in the morning.

_A/N: All right!  As I mentioned, I will post the rest of the chapter when it's done.  That will bring us to the end of John's time in Southburg, and the part where, if this was an episode, the screen all goes black and everyone hopes that it's going to turn out to be a two-part-er. ;-) In other words, a change in gears, and the story will continue.  Expect it in a week or two!  And here's a thank you for everyone who reviewed last time: Thank you Peggo, Doefriday, __ShaniaTwainrox74, LeafsFan2003 (seems you update much faster than me…) Kasia (all the chapters should be that long…this is the first time I've ever posted anything under ten pages!), Canadian Crow, ann(did I dawdle too long?), and Miyu, for all of your kind words.  I do try! :-)_

  


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[i] I've mentioned I'm making the Southburg-related facts up, right?

[ii] This number based on how long it takes me to walk the length of my room, adjusted for approximate height and gait differences…basically, also made up.


	3. TwentySeven Hours

Theresa Chapter 3: Twenty-Seven Hours 

_A John Doe fan fiction by Booklovr_

Disclaimer: The television show, John Doe, and all of the associated characters, ideas, and concepts are owned by Fox network, with which I am not affiliated, which will probably be blatantly obvious at nine o'clock Friday night, so read up!

_This chapter is dedicated, once again, to the reviewers, and also to the other fan fiction writers with their awesome ideas.  Also to Encarta and the people who bring you ask.com.  I couldn't do this without my info! :-)_

_A/N: Alright, I know this one took _forever_, but I promise that it's worth it.  The body of this chapter weighs in at just over sixteen pages—a goliath even by my standards!  JD turned out to have more to say than I thought he would, so as you can see I went with the one chapter plan rather than any other idea._

Studies on sleep have shown that the thought processes of the brain never completely shut down.  There is a difference in the brainwave activity seen in someone who is awake versus that of a sleeper, plus there is variation between the different stages of the sleep cycle, but the cerebral cortex itself continues to operate, or at least it seems to.  Some have theorized that this is an indication that our brains continue working in our sleep—that they continue to attempt to solve problems left from the day, continuing to search for an answer as you dream.  Certainly the electroencephalogram tracings of an alert person are similar in frequency and amplitude to those of a person in the Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep.[i]  While this might not prove anything, many people have claimed to have gone to sleep thinking about a problem, and woken up knowing the answer without remembering how they arrived at it.

Well, unfortunately, it did not work for me.  But I did wake up with the idea of going directly to the local police and finding out what they knew.  It was a last chance effort, but I only had Thursday and Friday left to learn anything.  I supposed that I could at least _try_ asking how they had come to their somewhat illogical conclusions; perhaps they had uncovered something I'd missed.  Not unlikely, considering how little I had found.  I thought the worst they could do was throw me out.

Well, we're all wrong sometimes.

Before heading out, I managed to convince Roger to let me make another call, though still not privately.  Once again, I was overcharged, and once again, I got Frank's voice mail.  "It's Doe again.  If you can stay near the phone, I'll try to call back around five."  I turned to the inn owner.  "Don't you ever let people make private calls?"

"The only people who make private calls are the ones who have something to hide."

I didn't know what to say to that.  Well, I did, but I had the feeling that any sentence starting with "statistically speaking" was not going to help my situation very much.

I went down to the police station at ten thirty.  It was a small building, hardly a hundred feet on each side, though I didn't really stop to measure it.  Southburg's police force consisted of Russell and two deputies.  Morse was still staking out the abandoned SUV.  The other was a young woman, sitting behind the front desk when I walked in.

"And you are?" she demanded.

"I'm John Doe, the Private—"

"Yeah, so I heard," she snapped, grabbing the card I held out.  She scrutinized it before giving me a rather shocking look of pure disgust.  "And what do you want?"

"Well, I was looking for Officer—"

"What a coincidence, he's been looking for you, too."

She looked at me as if waiting for a response.  Possibly just so that she could cut me off again.

"What did—"

"This way."  Apparently, she was determined to prevent me from ever completing the object in any of my sentences.

Russell's office was, similar to the rest of the station, in fact, similar to the rest of the town, almost too small to be believable.  There was only the desk and a chair opposite it, a file cabinet crushed into each corner, and barely enough room for the door to open into the room.  It was organized to use every inch of space to its maximum potential.  There was not a loose paper to be seen anywhere, not a used tissue on the ground.  It vaguely occurred to me that no one might have noticed why the inside of Theresa's car was so wrong if the entire town was full of compulsively clean people.  It certainly matched the condition of this room.

"Caroline, could you leave us?" Russell asked the deputy.  She gave me the kind of look that for centuries had reminded people of daggers—though, personally, I thought that was rather an understatement in this case—and stormed out.

"I suppose you're here to ask if you can see the case file, aren't you?"

"Well…yes."

"Uh-huh.  And I understand that yesterday you were asking questions of everyone in town?"

"I was running an investigation."

"Really?  Is that what they call it now?  Because _I _call it disturbing the peace."

"Well, I needed to get information for—"

"Yes, your 'investigation.'  I know.  And who, exactly, are you investigating for?"

"A private p—"

"Party that wishes to remain anonymous?  And that's what I call avoiding a question."

"My client has the right to—"

"Privacy, yeah.  You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"Well…"

"That is, if you were a real private investigator."

"I'm—"

"Not the only one that can do a little research.  There's no private eye named 'John Doe' in Seattle, and the address and number you gave are for a residence—a loft behind some bar.  Not to mention that you apparently don't exist."

I really hate when people bring that up.

"I suppose you tried to research my personal history," I said evenly.

"Yes."

"And you found?"

"Nothing.  Not a single thing."

"Funny how that's exactly what I found when I was looking into this case."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"_I_ think you're hiding something, something that's a little too well hidden."

"Or there was just nothing to be found, did you think of that?"

"I doubt _you_ did.  I'm sure you thought the same thing as me."

"So you're telling me there's nothing _to_ be found about you before eight months ago?"

"Would you believe me?"

"Hell no."

"Then I won't bother."

For a while we just stared at each other in silence.  I knew he was hiding something.  But what?

"I want you out of my town."

"I've told you.  My bus comes five o'clock tomorrow.  Can't leave before then."

"Well, I can't have you wandering the town that long."

"Why not?"

"Because you're a nuisance.  You're disturbing the peace.  I've gotten calls from nearly every house in town about a strange man bothering them and asking questions.  And you obviously aren't who you claim you are.  And you're interfering with a police investigation."

"So what do you plan to do about it?" I was already thinking out how I could regain entry to this building after he threw me out.  The only doors were the front door, which was too obvious, and the back door, which was most likely a fire exit attached to an alarm, though I could disarm it by—

"I'm going to keep you locked up until you can remove yourself."

"_What?_" I jumped to my feet, and for a few seconds, my brain completely turned off.

"I'll keep you here until three o'clock tomorrow.  That'll give you two hours to get out of town, and I don't want to see you again."

"But—keep me here on what charges?"

"I told you.  Disturbing the peace, obstructing an investigation, lying to the police—"

"But you can't just—"

"It's _my_ town," Russell said, rising to his feet.  "If I say I can, I can."

I looked him straight in the eye.  He couldn't do this.  I could prove it.  He might be stubborn, but I was confident that he was no match for me.

Ninety minutes later, we stood outside the Southburg jail cell.

Now, despite the fact that everything else about the town had been completely stereotypical, the jail cell was not the wooden room with the row of bars set-up usually seen in westerns and other such media.  That would have been preferable.

The cell was a room, roughly seven feet to a side, with a cot along one end, and a bench on the other.  The floor and walls were concrete.  The door was blue and heavy and metal.  There was a small window, about face height, in the door, and no other.  And that was it.

"You _can't_ put me in there for twenty-seven hours!  I'm claustrophobic!"

"Well, you should have thought of that before, shouldn't you?"

"Isn't there anything else?  Some kind of deal we could make?"

"Can you get yourself a ride out of here today?"

I considered.  I still had my phone call.  But whom could I call?  This was exactly what Frank had warned me against, so he was out.  Anyone else from the Seattle PD would be a progressively worse idea.  The only real option was Digger, and I knew he would come right up and not ask any questions, but—some part of me hesitated.  I thought of twenty-seven hours in a room hardly bigger than I was.  Then I thought of the two hours I would have afterwards.  I wanted to get into Theresa's apartment.  In the time I'd been inside the police station, I'd seen that there was no place they could have removed either the contents of her car or, hypothetically, her rooms, which meant that everything had to still be there.  If I left town, I might not have been able to get back in for a look.  But if I stayed, I might be able to slip in during those two hours.  Maybe.  Would it be worth it?

"Remaining in that room for more than a full day could be severely psychologically traumatizing."

"Oh, really?  Do you have a different idea?"

But this town was hiding something.  The whole town was.  I didn't know what, but I had seen enough things in my short memory to trust that paranoid feeling I was beginning to get.  If Digger brought his car up here, they'd identify the car, and him, and if there was even a _chance_ that these people had a connection with Phoenix Group—any chance at all—I couldn't risk them connecting anyone with me.

"You have no place else you could possibly keep me?"

"I want you where I can see you."

"Well, if you _really_ want me where you can see me, I'll sit in your office.  I'll sit there all day, won't make a sound, you can handcuff me to a chair—"

"In."

No other choice.

I walked into the cell, took a deep breath, and turned to take a last look out the door.  Russell pushed it shut, cutting off my view, and locked it.

Twenty-seven hours.

_Okay_, I thought.  _I can handle this.  The room is seven feet by six feet six inches.  It will remain seven feet by six feet six inches.  The walls are not closing in on me.  Nothing is spinning.  I can breathe just fine.  See?  Nothing's wrong._

_Except that I'm hyperventilating.  That's not good._

I sat—or fell, depending on how you looked at it—onto the cot, gripping the mattress as if it was the last solid object in the world.  I closed my eyes and continued to gasp.  Somewhere in the back corner of my mind, a thought shouted, _"Deep breaths!  Lower your head!  Between your knees!  Don't look at the room!  Relax!  Keep breathing!"_

Somehow, I managed to follow those instructions.  To distract myself, I started saying the first thing that came into my head.  "Seven feet by six feet six inches…by the Imperial System of Measurement.  The foot was originally a measurement…of the length of the human foot, but…not standardized.  First standardized Imperial unit for the measurement of distance…the Saxon _gyrd_, based on the measure of the circumference of human body…standardized to the length of the arm of King Henry I in 1101.  This is the basis for the modern measure of a yard, divided into three feet, subdivided into twelve inches.  An inch was determined to be…the length of three round, dry barley corns, laid end to end."[ii]

After what seemed an eternity, my breath had returned to normal, the blood wasn't pounding quite so loudly in my ears, and the sense of vertigo had faded.  This wasn't so bad.  I stood up and walked to the door.  If I pressed my face against the window just right, I could see the clock at the end of the hallway.  Find out how long I had been in here, how much longer it would go on for.

Twenty-six hours, fifty-five minutes.

I sat down again.  "Alright," I said to myself.  "I've been in tighter spots than this before.  I can get through it.  Just a few weeks ago, I was crawling through the air ducts of the Seattle PD, and I was fine then.  Of course, I was a little…preoccupied at the time."  I got up and tried to pace.  Not really possible in a room just over one stride in length, but I tried.  I was starting to calm down.  Somewhat.  I needed to keep myself as distracted as possible.

Distractions.  What had worked before?  I thought back to some of the previous times that I'd been forced to face my claustrophobia.  Of course, there was the trip through the Seattle PD air ducts, but there was no terrorist or danger to think about now.  There was the time I had to hide in a coffin, in order to catch Lenny Pesco—but that was an experience that I did not want to relive.  And before that…

Before that was a much more pleasant memory.  The long flight to England and the woman who had sat next to me…

I'm sure most people can't say that one of their best memories involves a murder investigation and nearly dying a horrible, painful death, but I don't have that many to choose from.  The flight when I met Rachel Pembroke was probably not the best day I'd ever had, but meeting her had been worth it.

I've never been sure what draws me to her.  Maybe it's the way she makes me see the world in a different way, I don't know.  But right from the beginning, she had my attention.  Well, once I managed to get past the raging claustrophobia, anyway.  I remembered the acupressure massage she had given me, calming me down, allowing me to relax and later to focus.  I honestly don't think I'd have been able to do anything on that plane without her help.

I sat down on the cot, thinking of Rachel and wishing, rather illogically, that she were there.  I knew that she really couldn't help with anything, not this time, but a familiar, friendly face would.  Well, anything that could occupy my mind would help.

So, I stretched out on the cot, and thought back.  I began with meeting Rachel on the airplane, and simply remembered all the events that had followed.  The murder…the investigation…the days I had spent afterwards in London…

It was something of a shock, later, when I woke up.  I hadn't realized that I was asleep, and hadn't even been tired before.  Or perhaps I had been.  Too many nights that week, I'd fallen asleep, worrying about the investigation, thinking about Theresa, and had consequently not been sleeping well.  A distraction had been good on more than one level.  I now felt refreshed, well rested, and more relaxed.  I was still in the seven foot by six foot six inch cell, but I didn't feel as panicked about it as I had.  I went to the door again, to find out how much time I had left.

Twenty-two hours, thirty-eight minutes left to go.  I'd slept the better part of the afternoon away.  Well.

I sat down again, because standing and pacing weren't really preferable options.  What _was_ I doing up here anyway?  I'd spent the entire week searching for a woman I'd only seen once, who I'd never met, who had only ever said two words to me: "_Tom_my!  Tom_my_!"  For all I knew, she'd mistaken me for someone else, or had been looking at someone behind me, or…

Could I be wrong?  Was this all just another dead end, just another case of me looking everywhere for an answer, whether there was a real connection or not?  Maybe it didn't mean anything at all that I saw her in color, maybe she was part of some completely unrelated mystery, maybe there was no mystery at all and she had just gone with her boyfriend back to wherever they had come from.  Maybe Phoenix Group only knew about her from my mentioning the mysterious woman on _America's Most Wanted._  Maybe they had just invented her as they'd invented the story of my life before, maybe the pictures of her that I'd found in the fire had only been put there to throw me off…After all, people had lied to me before.[iii]  Maybe this was just another case of lies and manipulation.

Maybe.

But, there was still a chance that they did have her, and, no matter how remote the chance, I could not forget that.  Because if Phoenix Group did have her, they had her because of me.  They only knew about her because of me.  And if anything happened to her, it would be because of me.  Like Karen's death was because of me.  It had to stop here, and I had to stop it.  By finding Theresa.

But what if they didn't have her?  What if Phoenix Group knew about my supposed connection to her, but they hadn't been able to find her, either?  What if…God help me, what if they were planning to use _me_ to find her?  Then all my work would have been _for_ them.  If this was the case, then I had to stop now, and maybe, just maybe, they would give up.  Maybe that was all that I could do for her.

But what if…?

Around eight o'clock, for lack of anything better to do I tried to escape.  Well, I didn't really try, but I spent about an hour pacing around the tiny cell, trying to decide how I could break out, if I had really wanted to.  I'd gotten as far as making a mental list of objects that could be used to break the glass of the window on the door, and was working out a method of unlocking the door that mainly revolved around my shoelace when I was interrupted by the arrival of dinner.  It was brought by Deputy Morse, who was apparently finally off sentinel duty.  He appeared to be nervous, so I sat as far away as possible and tried to look non-threatening.

"So you do plan to feed me after all," I commented.  "Is there going to be breakfast, too?"

"Why?" Morse demanded suspiciously.  "Are you planning an escape?"

"Yes, but only a theoretical one."

"What?"

"Well, I don't have anything else to occupy myself with."

Morse hesitated, looking confused.  "Well, I could get you a crossword puzzle, if that would help."

I shook my head.  "I'd need…quite a few crossword puzzles."

"Right," he said unsurely.  "I'm not supposed to give you things like that, anyway."

"Oh, I couldn't escape with a piece of newspaper or a pen.  Though a paperclip would help a little."

That was actually an attempt at humor.  I promise, I wasn't really trying to make him even more nervous.

Eventually, I managed to convince him to leave the food.  After I finished eating, I spent about an hour attempting to line up the crumbs according to size—without a doubt the most useless activity I have performed for as long as I can remember.

But it competes very strongly with my attempts to see how many knots I could tie in a single hair before it broke—I made it all the way to thirty-seven before I dropped it by accident.

At one o'clock in the morning, I tried going to sleep.  I gave up at four o'clock, though if I subtract the amount of time spent tossing and turning, I probably got forty-five whole minutes of sleep.

Eleven hours left to go.  Well, at least I was past the halfway point.

The lack of sleep, combined with the lingering effects of claustrophobia, was making me edgy.  I needed something to do, but had nothing.

At four thirty-eight, I began experimenting with different ways to lace my shoes.  Considering each string-eyelet combination as a pulley, a quick mental analysis of all the possible combinations determined that the traditional crisscross lacing method was the strongest, but not the most efficient method.  After some calculations and a few experiments, I found a method combining horizontal, vertical, and crisscross lacings that saved allowed several more inches of free lace to be left for tying my shoes.[iv]

At five eighteen, I completely unlaced my shoes and used the shoelaces to practice Cat's Cradle and other string figures.  While I already knew how to make them all, it was mildly amusing because a few of them were tricky and took two or three tries.  You know, string figures are a form of entertainment that developed on virtually every continent (except, of course, Antarctica), and may have their origins as far back as the Stone Age.  No one really knows who invented them or when, but to date over two thousand different figures have been published since the anthropologist Frank Boas first described the instructions for an Intuit figure in 1888.[v]  Cat's Cradle is the most well known of string figures, in fact a series of figures that forms a game, as the string is passed between two or more players.

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel _Cat's Cradle_, the narrator, Jonah, is only called by his name once in the entire book.

Really, it's no wonder people think I'm boring.

At six o'clock I tried sleeping again, and eventually succeeded.  I don't know when I fell asleep, and I don't really remember sleeping, but when I got up again it was eleven thirty-nine, so I must have.  Three hours, twenty-one minutes left to go.

_This is pointless,_ I thought.  Twenty-seven hours in a prison cell, and then I had two hours in which to get myself out of the town.  What had I thought I could accomplish in that time?

I slowly ran over the facts in my head.  I considered Theresa's sudden disappearance from this town, her abandoned car, everyone's silence…something was going on, I was sure of it, but what?  I wasn't doing anything but hitting my head against a wall.  If there was something to be found here, could I find it?  In two hours?

I tried to think up a plan.  Usually, this isn't a problem—if it needs to be done, I can always think of a way to do it.  "Physically impossible" has never been a problem for me.  But this was a completely different kind of impossible—it involved people.  If the information had been sealed inside of any kind of locked room or vault or anything of that sort, I could have gotten it.  But if the abandoned Isuzu Trooper was anything to go on, all the evidence had long since been destroyed, and the information I needed was locked in the heads of the townspeople, where I had no chance of retrieving it.  At least, not on my own.

I considered the other possibilities.  I could try to come back with someone else who could help.  But who?  The list of people I could ask was pretty short; Jamie probably wouldn't, Frank had already said he couldn't…Digger might.  If he thought it could help, which was a little questionable.  Would the people of Southburg react any differently to another stranger?  Especially if he came with me?

I could just give up on the town.  Everyone seemed to think she had headed to Seattle.  I could return there, maybe pick up the trail again.  It wouldn't be easy, but I figured I could handle that better than this.  I should be able to find _something_ there…eventually…

When Russell finally came to let me out, I was standing eagerly, ready to leave as soon as possible.  I had pretty much resigned myself to giving up on Southburg.  My hopes lay in what little I had managed to gather, and the possibility of finding her again in the city.  If I couldn't do that…well, I didn't want to think that way.  I would find her.  If nothing else, I would find out, once and for all, who she really was.  And I planned to find that out soon.

At one twenty-eight, I had packed up the few belongings that I had brought and was ready to catch the bus.  Except that it was still an hour and thirty-two minutes away.  Then I remembered that I had promised to call Frank.

"Look," I said to Roger with annoyance, as he stood stubbornly next to the phone, "it's just _one_ call.  One five minute long call."

"So you won't mind me standing here for another five minutes."

"I have a right to privacy, you know!"

"Not on my phone you don't."

"I'm leaving town in one hour and twenty minutes!  Whatever I say after that won't be important to you anymore, will it?"

"Depends.  What are you planning to talk about?"

"Nothing that should worry you.  I just want a few minutes to talk privately with a friend."

"Uh-huh."

I was pretty desperate at this point.  "Look, I'll pay you another twenty dollars if you promise to leave for five minutes."

He considered this idea.  "Twenty-five."

"What?" I demanded.  "I'm already paying seven fifty for this call.  I'll give you twenty two dollars and fifty cents more, making it thirty dollars, total."

He took the money and left.

I called Frank and, thankfully, he was there.

"John?  What happened?  You were supposed to call last night, I was starting to get worried!"

"I…couldn't get to a telephone before now."

"Don't you have a cell phone with you?"

"No reception up here, and it apparently costs thirty dollars for a five minute call in this town."

"Thirty dollars?  That's got to be some kind of record—wait!  Don't say it."

"Don't say what?"

"You're about to tell me what the most expensive five minute call in history was, and I don't want to detract any time from your telling me what the hell is going on."

"Not much to tell.  Just been investigating, but I've found exactly nothing."

"_You_?  Found _nothing_?"

"Hard to believe, isn't it?  And then I lost twenty-seven hours while I was in jail…"

"Excuse me?  I'm not going to have to start denying all knowledge of your activities, am I?"

"No, they just want me to get out of here."

"Great.  Well, if you still want that information you asked for…"

"It probably won't help at this point, but I've still got four minutes, eight seconds left of this call."

"Alright, I put Stella on it—I'll send you over to her.  She was worried too, you know."

"Really?" That was a surprise.  To me, at least.

"Yes, really.  Hold on…"

A moment later, a different voice came on.  "Hello, Stella here."

"Hi, Stella, it's—"

"John!  Finally, I was so worried!"

"Why does everybody worry?  I've gotten out of worse situations before!"

"Yeah, but with you, anything could turn into a worse situation."

"Well, never mind.  Everything is fine now, I'll be back soon."

"Good.  As for that information you asked for…"

"Red 1992 Isuzu Trooper, license plate 101-JDF?"

"Yeah, I found it.  Registered to a Mrs. Veronica Kelly."

"Veronica?" I wondered out loud.  Well, I supposed it might make sense.  Perhaps Theresa hadn't been able to afford her own car and had used Veronica's.  Only that didn't seem to fit with what people had been saying.

"Friend of yours?"

"You could say that."

"And then I found…"

"Wait, I didn't ask for anything else!"

"Well, um, I didn't have anything _else _to do…"

"You didn't?"

"Do you want this or not?"

"Alright, what did you find?"

"Well, I tried to see if there was anything on this Theresa Small, and here's what I've got: a driver's license."

"And…?"

"That's it."

"That's _it_?"

"No other forms of ID, no lease on the apartment, not even a birth certificate."

"That's…unusual."

"No kidding.  I even ran a check on her social security number."

"Let me guess: fake?"

"That it is!  It apparently also belongs to the same Mrs. Veronica Kelly."

Now things were really not adding up.  "Can you get anything on her?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?  I've already done it."

"Good job.  I've got…three minutes, so talk fast."

"Three…?  Never mind.  For starters, she's definitely got everything I looked for—phone records, credit card bills, apartment, birth certificate…"

"You did a thorough search," I complimented.

"I learned from the best."

"Who?"

"You, of course."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say to that. "Thanks.  I think.  So, what did you find?"

"Well, she's lived in that apartment for four years, and has had…three different addresses in town in the last fifty-eight years."

"What?  Wait, how old _is_ she?  When did she move to Southburg?"

"She's…fifty-eight, so she's lived there her whole life."

I didn't like the new way that things were falling together.

"John?  Is something wrong?"

"Keep talking…"

"Okay.  Credit card records show that she made a lot of big purchases right after her last move—it looks like she was buying enough to fully furnish the apartment.  I mean, furniture, clothes, utensils, _everything_.  That car as well, which wasn't particularly cheap.  And bank records show that just a month or two before, someone deposited quite a bit of money in her account."

"Enough to cover all that?"

"And then some.  After that, she never made another big purchase with her credit card, but she kept withdrawing on a regular basis, so pretty much anything else she bought must have been with cash.  Except for bills, of course.  And she paid enough to cover _two_ apartments, even though she was officially only paying for her own."

"Wait, so who's name was the other apartment leased under?"

"Here's the confusing part: no one's.  Records from the town's realty indicate that both were unoccupied and for lease for about three years, then Mrs. Kelly moves into the ground floor and the top just goes off the market."

I thought for a few seconds, trying to connect what Stella was telling me with what Veronica had said just a few days before.  It didn't add up at all.

"Who was she married to?  When did he die?"

"A…George Kelly from Olympia, and he's not dead, they divorced ten years ago, and he currently resides in…Los Angeles."

I looked at my watch.  Fifty seconds.

"This doesn't make any sense," I told her, trying to think fast.  "That large deposit into her account—?"

"It looks like…she did it herself, so she must have been given the money in cash.  Huh, that's quite a lot to just be carrying around."

Thirty seconds.

"Alright, one last thing, Stella—what's her maiden name?"

"It's…Veronica Russell, born July eighteenth, nineteen forty-five."

"Russell?  Veronica _Russell_?"

"Yeah, and before you ask, it appears that her only relative currently residing in Southburg is her nephew Fredrick Russell."

I was at a complete loss for words.  Which didn't matter, because at that moment, Roger Harper came back in the room.  I still had eleven seconds, but I had had enough.  "Thanks, Stella, but I need to go…"

"Get yourself into a 'worse situation'?"

"Um, don't worry about me."

"I will."

I dropped the receiver and ran, almost knocking Roger over.  I had only an hour and fifteen minutes before the bus arrived, and there was no way I was leaving the case like this.

I reached the Oak Street duplex in less than five minutes, and slammed open the door.  There was no time for subtlety.  I ran to the top apartment, now convinced that there was something up there.  Something that Veronica had been trying to keep me from.  I knew that the door would be locked, so I didn't bother testing it.  One well placed kick later, the door was open and I was in.

I knew instantly that this apartment had been Theresa's.  I could almost see it in color—it's hard to explain, but the color was there, only misty and almost subliminal.  She had lived here for three years, and it was as if a part of her was still in the room.  There wasn't much.  A table and two chairs, the kitchen set…

I quickly determined that I was not the only person to enter in a year.  Unlike the car, there was no even layer of dust.  In fact, it seemed that someone came into the room quite regularly.

I began searching, but quickly, because I knew I didn't have much time.  There was nothing that I could see in the kitchen, or in the small living room, that was out of the ordinary at all.  In near desperation, I ran into the bedroom.  I looked around quickly, and didn't see anything, but just as I was about to give up, something caught my eye.  A glimpse of real, full color.

I looked again.  It was on the bedside table, under the lamp.  Clearly, someone had tried to hide it there—if it hadn't been the only true color that I could see in the room, I wouldn't have noticed it either.  It was the very bottom corner of a picture.  Someone had put it under the base of the lamp, but it had slid out the tiniest bit.  I carefully moved the lamp and picked it up.

The photo was of a young girl, pre-adolescent, and in full color.  She was probably ten to fourteen years old, wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, and she had brown hair and eyes.  The picture was very amateurish—it was off center, with the girl positioned in the bottom left corner.  There must have been a good deal of background, but someone had cut it down so that it only showed her, though some was still visible.  She was standing in some kind of field, and her arm seemed to be around someone much shorter, standing next to her.  Whoever it may have been was almost completely cut out by the un-centered shot.  All I could see was the top of a head—either the other one had black hair, or I just didn't see it in color.

I stood there, staring at the young girl's face for…I honestly don't know how long.  I was brought back to reality when I heard a familiar voice demand, "So, you just couldn't stay away, could you, John?"

I turned to see Veronica standing in the doorway.  No longer a bent and unsure old woman, she stood perfectly still, with a gun pointed straight at my head.  It was a Browning 9mm Hi-Power.[vi]  Just so you know.

"Veronica…"

"Don't even _think_ about moving."

"Okay," I said slowly.  It appeared that I had gotten myself into a "worse situation."

"There was a reason," she told me, "why I shouldn't kill you, but I can't seem to remember what it is."

"Well, it would be first degree murder," I offered.  "I don't think your nephew would want to have to arrest you, either."

"Oh, you figured that out?  Then you're not as stupid as I thought.  Though we've given you plenty of hints…"

"Hints?"

"Yeah, _leave town, or else!  You won't find anything here._"  She sighed.  "Some of them wanted to believe you were just an innocent PI that didn't know what he was getting into, but the truth's pretty obvious now."

"Truth?  What truth?"

"Don't play stupid, you know perfectly well.  It's obvious, with all the personal interest you have in this 'case.'  What kind of people do you think we _are_?  Did you expect with that story, that we'd just tell you everything?  Did you think we wouldn't _know_?"

"You apparently know more than I do," I said as evenly as possible.  "_What_ do you know?  Tell me everything about _what_?"

"What you came for, of course.  If you really thought that we knew where Theresa is, didn't you think we'd protect her, not just tell the whole story to everyone who came through?"

"Wh-what whole story—protect her from _who_?"

"From _you_ and all the rest!  Theresa told us they would be looking for her."

I stopped breathing at this point.  "They…?"

"A group," she said, "called Phoenix."

The symptoms of shock include sudden weakness, shallow breathing, rapid heart rate combined with a weak pulse, low blood pressure, cold skin, reduced awareness, and even fainting.[vii]  Well, I managed not to faint, but besides that I perfectly fit the clinical description of "in shock."

"Phoenix…?" I managed.  My legs simply stopped working, and I fell onto the bed.  "You—I—Bu—Wh—How—_Phoenix_?"  I couldn't say anything more coherent than that for about a minute.

"That's what I said.  And don't you—"

"How do you know about Phoenix?"

"I said, Theresa told us you would—"

I realized what she was saying. "Y—_Me_?  You think I work for _Phoenix_?  How—_Why_?"

The tiniest hint of doubt crossed her eyes, but the gun never wavered.  "You came into town to investigate a perfectly uninteresting disappearance case.  You repeatedly ignored orders, advice, and hints to leave town.  You persistently searched for clues wherever you could get them.  Not to mention that you seem to have assumed an invented identity.  And then there was the symbol on your cards."

For a second, I just sat there, taking it all in.  Then, suddenly, I started to laugh.  I didn't even know what was funny at first, but slowly my mind wrapped around the reality of the situation.  And it was so ironic, it was funny.  For the first time, I had finally found people actually knew _anything_ about Phoenix, and I hadn't even known, had gone about it all wrong from the beginning!

"And the entire town knows about Phoenix?" I managed to ask.

Veronica nodded, beginning to look rather confused.

Suddenly, the situation made perfect sense.  They were trying to protect Theresa from the people who were after her, and they thought that included me.  I rethought the entire week with this new information, and realized exactly how horrible of a mess I'd gotten myself into.  If I didn't know any better, I would have been suspicious of myself!

Then it occurred to me that without a doubt, these people were quite willing to kill for this secret if necessary, and Veronica looked like she thought it was.  That stopped the rather hysterical laughter pretty quickly.

"No," I finally said.  "No, I definitely do _not_ work for Phoenix.  This is all just a misunderstanding."

"Like hell it is, you think I'm an idiot or something?  How do you know about Phoenix if you don't work with them?"

"That's…a long story.  Which," I added quickly, "I'd be more than happy to share with you if there wasn't a gun pointed at my head."

"Well, get used to it."

"Okay.  I've known about Phoenix for several months—since November—but I haven't been able to find anything out about them.  That's why I put the phoenix picture on all those business cards—considering how my search for information has gone, I thought it would be, well, safest.  If no one knows anything about Phoenix, they wouldn't associate it with anything.  I never expected—"

"_How_ do you know about them?"

"They're after me, and I don't know why or…to what purpose, or…all I know is that they know more about me than I know about…them." I had nearly said _about myself_. "And two months ago, they killed someone very close to me." I looked Veronica straight in the eyes. "I would not work for Phoenix even if—even if there was no other choice."

"And what about your lack of identity?" But Veronica seemed less sure of herself now.

"That's…the long part of the story.  I…" Well, might as well tell everything to the woman with a gun pointed at my head.  "I have complete amnesia.  I have no memories before September of last year, so I don't know who I am or why Phoenix is so interested in me.  But they are."

Veronica hesitated.  "And why did you come up here?"

"Because…because I saw Theresa.  Back in September, in Seattle.  I saw her, on a ferry and…she recognized me." Might as well say _everything_. "I'm colorblind.  But I saw her in color.  By the time I got to the ferry, she was gone, and I couldn't find her again.  Two months later, Phoenix tried to contact me.  They told me a false past, they were trying to…I don't know.  But they had pictures of Theresa, and they told me her name.  I promised myself that I would find her but…well, I never had a chance to.  Last week, I saw the missing person report, thought I finally had a lead.  But I didn't think…well, I guess I just didn't think."

"You could just be lying."

"You know I'm not."

"How can I be sure?"

I thought for a minute.  "Have you ever actually dealt with Phoenix?  No?  Well, if I were one of them, you wouldn't realize it until I'd gotten the information I was looking for and left.  And I would have gotten that information by any means necessary.  We would not be having this conversation right now."

Veronica considered.  "That does fit what Theresa told us about them.  But…"

"Who is this?" I asked, holding up the picture I had found.  "This girl—is she Theresa?"

Veronica nodded. "How did you know?"

"I told you, I see her in color.  Plus, of course, her room, educated guess.  When Phoenix contacted me, one of the things they showed me was a picture of Theresa when she was young…she didn't look like this.  They also had more recent pictures.  Some looked like…like they had been watching her, surveillance of some kind.  And then two months ago, when they…when they took Karen, my assistant…" I took a deep breath.  I didn't want to think about the connection I was about to make, but it seemed possible, and at the very least, Veronica had the right to know.  "Karen managed to get away, she called me before they…before they caught her again.  That's how I found her…or found where they…" I had to stop and take another deep breath.  Amazing how fast you can run out of air sometimes.  "Anyway, she said that they had her—her and another woman." Again, I gave Veronica a straight, unblinking look.  "I don't think Phoenix is going to come looking for Theresa around here."

"They…they…" Veronica seemed to see that I was telling the truth.  Slowly, she lowered the gun.  "They have her?"

"It seems…very possible."

Slowly, she walked forward and collapsed on the other side of the bed.  "Oh…no…oh, God, no, _no_…"

She began to sob, and I could only watch helplessly.

"The rest of the town won't believe you," she told me some time later.

"I don't have the time to convince them."

"They…probably won't believe me if I told them."

"I wouldn't expect them to.  I don't even expect _you_ to.  But, before I leave…"

Veronica slowly shook her head.  "There's not much to tell.  Fredrick met Theresa when he was still working in Boise.  How he gained her trust, neither of them ever said, but eventually she told him about Phoenix being after her, and needing protection.  He brought her here."

"To you."

"To all of us.  The people in town all contributed, and I took care of everything she needed.  Apartment, clothes, food, the fake driver's license—you probably figured out that "Small" isn't her real last name—everything.  She was grateful for it all, of course, but she never said anything about her past.  She told us we would just be in more danger if we knew.  So her entire past was a secret; we only knew that she wasn't the only one, there was at least one other, who used to occasionally contact her.  I don't know who it was, never a return address or a signature, but whoever it was, they were important to her.  The letters were fairly regular—one every month or two—but then they stopped coming.  Six months she waited, and then she said that something had gone wrong.  That her friend wouldn't ever go this long without contacting her.  She was leaving to look for this friend, and none of us could stop her.  So we agreed to help, planned out an official story for where she had gone, a back up story in case anything went wrong, and parts to play if anyone ever came looking.  We had that old car of hers fixed up as good as possible; so any one who found it couldn't discover anything about her through it.  She seemed to think that she would be in danger if so much as a hair was left in there, which is why everyone was so nervous about what you found."

I nodded.  "So the original story was that she had gone to visit her boyfriend?  And the car being found meant that you needed to change?"

"Right.  Terrible, nosey city people found it.  At least they're keeping quiet now, I think Fredrick pretty much scared them silent with his tale of what happens to people who get involved in small town murder cases.  All made up, of course, but they didn't know any better.  We knew it would attract attention, and sure enough, you showed up.  We tried all our plans to get you to leave—including having Jim from the market talk to you.  He was fond of her and didn't like pretending to be stupid enough to slip up, but we hoped that you would just take whatever he told you and leave with it."

"Was everything that everyone said lies, then?"

"Don't know what everyone said."

"Well…the part about the piano?"

She smiled sadly.  "That much was true.  And she did love that song."

"And that's…all there is to tell?"

"I could tell you so much more about who she was…but you don't have the time."

I looked sadly at my watch.  No, I didn't; thirty-six minutes until the bus came, I had to leave right then.  "Just when I'm finally starting to get somewhere," I lamented.  "One last question.  This picture…?"

"She tried to pack up all her personal belongings before she left, and destroyed whatever she couldn't take.  Didn't want to leave anything that could be definitively traced to her.  But that one she must have dropped.  It was her favorite picture of her childhood, she said, and I know she would have wanted to keep it.  I couldn't bear to get rid of it, or take it from her room.  It didn't belong to me, so I hid it.  Tried to, anyway."

I hesitated, not knowing how to phrase my request.  "So I guess, well, you'll want it back…"

This time the smile reached her eyes.  "I'll tell you what.  You keep it.  Then, you can return it to its proper owner when you find her."

I didn't know how to thank her; she really had no idea how much this picture meant to me.  "I can contact you, if I ever—"

Veronica shook her head.  "No.  If you find her, that means either you've rescued her back from Phoenix, or they never had her in the first place.  Either way, contacting me is just what they would expect her to do, so it's what you mustn't.  I suppose I'll find out eventually."

"I'll find her," I said, slowly and forcefully.  "I promise you that.  I will find her.  And this time…this time, I won't be too late."

As the bus slowly found its way back to Seattle, I looked at the picture and considered what I had learned.  Not much.  I had spent an entire week convincing a small town that I was the last person I ever wanted to be, and all I had to show for it was some scarf fibers, scraps of paper, a strand of her hair, and more questions.  And the picture.

It was a Polaroid instant picture.  Judging by the quality, I would say Sun 640, a camera produced from 1981 to the 1990's, and to be on the original 600-style integral print film, which was sold during roughly the same time range.  Of course, Sun 640 cameras still exist today, and the film can keep for several years if stored properly, though the evenness of the exposure indicated that the film had not been very aged when the picture was taken.[viii]  Which put the time of the photograph between 1981 and the mid 1990's, and meant Theresa's real age could be anywhere from twenty to thirty-seven.  So, no help there.

In the background, I saw what appeared to be _Ambrosia artemisiifolia_—common ragweed.  One time, I had remembered the smell of ragweed while listening to _My Funny Valentine_.  Theresa had loved _My Funny Valentine_.  Was it all just one big coincidence?

I don't know what Veronica told the people of Southburg.  Whether she ever tried to explain what had happened in Theresa's apartment, or whether she just went on believing, or pretending to believe, that I was part of Phoenix.  Perhaps she had never believed me, and everything in the end had been one elaborate plan to satisfy me and get me out of the town.  But I didn't think so.  There was something very sincere about Veronica, and I'm sure that I believe her.

I didn't know where to go next.  I had reached another dead end, as far as my search went.  I could only hope that soon, another clue would find its way to me.  They had a habit of doing that sometimes.  Sometimes they even got to me before it was too late.  I hoped this would be one of those times.

I had promises to keep.  I had promised myself I would find out who the woman on the ferry is.  I had promised Karen that I would find the people who…that I would find Phoenix.  I had promised Theresa, mentally at least, that I would find out what had happened to her.  And just then, I had promised Veronica that I would find her friend.  That made for a lot of finding to do.

And I knew one thing: this time, I would keep my promises.

**Meanwhile, somewhere in Washington:**__

_Two deaf men casually meet each other at a city corner.  While waiting for the traffic to stop, they begin conversing in sign language._

_Well?  Did he learn anything?_

_Almost nothing._

_That is not what we wanted._

_Perhaps, but it does not matter.  The rest of the plan will take care of it._

_I am not certain that this is a wise idea._

_It will work.  It cannot fail.  He will do as we expect.  It is in his nature._

_You should hope that you are right.  We will not tolerate another failure._

_The traffic light changes, and one man walks across the street.  The other suddenly remembers something important, and returns the way he came from._

**End part one.**

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_A/N: Did you make it? Congratulations!!  As I said, this is the end of part one.  Parts 2 through 180-ZZ-Omega-Zed will be posted later, starting after the season finale (exactly how long depends on how many of my original ideas get completely shot down by those bombshells we're supposed to get in the next two weeks).  Oh, I loooooove writing epics! :-) If you want to see more of "Theresa" this summer and beyond, leave a review to let me know!  I promise to update quicker in the future (there were issues this time, wherein Theresa didn't want Rachel getting a mention in "her" story, and Rachel refused to be left out if all the other "JD-gals" were finding their way in…and then JD got mad about my leaving him locked in the jail cell for a week while I dealt with those two…) if you promise to provide feedback!  And, of course, criticism is always appreciated, too, if I have glaring grammar/logic/plot errors.  Or just about anything.  Really.  Not desperate after two weeks of review deprivation at all…;-)_

_Take care, and enjoy tomorrow night's episode of John Doe!!_

  


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[i] Thank you, Encarta, for the thorough explanation and interesting pictures that allow me to allow JD to keep talking about this stuff…

[ii] Once again, thanks to Encarta.  Encarta rules! :-)

[iii] See: "Episode Five: John Deux" and "Episode Eight: Idaho".  This is the easiest man in the world to manipulate.  Offer him answers, and he comes along and does exactly what you want. :-)

[iv] Hats off to mathematician Burkard Polster of Monash University, Australia who actually determined this after analyzing the 400,000,000 different ways of lacing your shoes.  He gets a mention in the May 2003 issue of _Discover_ Magazine, page 14: "One, Two, Tie My Mathematical Shoe" by Rachael Moeller Gorman.

[v] From the International String Figure Association website www.isfa.org There's a website for everything these days…

[vi] Favorite gun of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (by Laurel K. Hamilton)…can never pass up a reference to one of my favorite series! :-)

[vii] Encarta strikes again!

[viii] Thanks to the Land List for all the Polaroid info!  (For some reason, the address isn't showing up when I upload this chapter.  My apologies!!)


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